


honey-bodied beautiful one

by deathsweetqueen



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Sexual Situations, BAMF Tony Stark, Body Dysphoria, De-Serumed Steve Rogers, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Insecure Steve Rogers, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Conventional Sexual Intercourse, Non-Ejaculatory Orgasms, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Feels, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, sexual health
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28885311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathsweetqueen/pseuds/deathsweetqueen
Summary: It’s all Loki’s fault, to be honest.They’re in the middle of a battle against Loki, because the asshole has a thing against Thor and their special, vulnerable little planet is Ground Zero every time the asshole comes up with a new grudge against his brother.It all happens so quickly that Tony doesn’t even know what’s happening; it also doesn’t help that he’s fifty feet in the air, fighting against murderous, giant rabbits with lasers for eyes (honestly, for someone who hates humans like nothing else, where does he come up with shit, because there’s no fucking way that he could come up with this kind of creativity on his own, and Tony doubts that other alien civilisations are capable of the shit that humans are capable of).But when he looks down, he sees Loki laughing, a bolt of green light darting from his pale, long fingers, heading straight for Natasha, and then, Steve is there, knocking Natasha out of the way, and he takes the full-fledged heat of the green light.“Steve!” Tony shouts.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 40
Kudos: 154





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChocolateCapCookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChocolateCapCookie/gifts).



> This was written for ChocolateCapCookie, who won a prize of a 5-15K fic in the Put on the Suit Server's Readathon Event Raffle.
> 
> The title of this fic comes from D.H. Lawrence's poem, Almond Blossom.
> 
> This chapter was written for the "I'll Only Slow You Down" square (B4) for the STB Bingo Round 1.

It’s all Loki’s fault, to be honest.

They’re in the middle of a battle against Loki, because the asshole has a thing against Thor and their special, vulnerable little planet is Ground Zero every time the asshole comes up with a new grudge against his brother.

It all happens so quickly that Tony doesn’t even know what’s happening; it also doesn’t help that he’s fifty feet in the air, fighting against murderous, giant rabbits with lasers for eyes (honestly, for someone who hates humans like nothing else, where does he come up with shit, because there’s no fucking way that he could come up with this kind of creativity on his own, and Tony doubts that other alien civilisations are capable of the shit that humans are capable of).

But when he looks down, he sees Loki laughing, a bolt of green light darting from his pale, long fingers, heading straight for Natasha, and then, Steve is there, knocking Natasha out of the way, and he takes the full-fledged heat of the green light.

“Steve!” Tony shouts.

The laser slams out of his wrists, and he cuts off the head of the giant rabbit currently attacking him – it should be a macabre sight, and tomorrow, he’s fairly certain that there’ll be tabloid newspapers mocking him and calling him _bunny killer_ , but it was necessary for him to fly down in an arc and land on the ground, in front of Steve, just as Natasha climbs to her feet and rushes over.

Tony gapes at what he finds.

It’s Steve, but it’s also not Steve, at least, not the Steve that Tony knows, the Steve that Tony had dated and fucked and fallen in love with, not because they’re drastically separate human beings, but because Tony wasn’t expecting to see a skinny, short version of Steve swimming in a Captain America costume.

Steve looks at his hand, thinner, paler, bonier than what he’d had a few moments ago in a hand.

Tony opens his mouth, about to say something either incredibly stupid or incredibly heart-warming, but he doesn’t get a shot to even push a word out, because Steve’s expression is shuttering over, closing off to everyone and anyone, and he lifts his head.

“Enough wasting time,” he says, firmly. “We need to get back to the battle, or these fucking rabbits are going to get past the perimeter.”

Natasha and Tony exchange a look.

“Steve,” Tony says, uncertainly.

“Don’t start,” Steve replies, his voice stern edged. “I don’t want to hear it. We need to get back to the battle.”

“Rogers, you’re in no condition,” Natasha declares, happy to be the bad guy if Tony can’t quite get the words out.

Honestly, Tony’s a little glad that it was Natasha who bit the bullet and ended up saying that, because the terrifying expression that finds its way onto Steve’s face makes something curdle in Tony’s belly, akin to fear or worry or some strange blend of the two.

“What did you say?” Steve asks, quietly but with a dangerous edge.

“You’re in no condition,” Natasha repeats, her arms folding over her chest.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” Steve says, venomously, and then, he’s standing, stumbling to his feet.

If he looked strange on the floor the way that he did, he definitely looks strange on his feet, with the uniform hanging over his bony shoulders, thin hips, stick-like legs – it should look like something funny, but Tony’s fairly certain that Steve would punch him in the face if he laughed, and then, Rhodey would punch Steve, and it would just end up in a total fucking mess that Tony would just rather do without.

“Look, Steve,” Tony says, gently, “maybe it’s just a good idea if you take a step back right now. For the most part, the bunnies are gone. Thor’s handling Loki, and between Clint’s arrows and the Hulk, I think we’ve got this sorted. Just take a breather. You don’t have to continue being the Captain of Captains right now–”

“Tony,” Steve begins, his voice ice-cold.

“Look, I know that you’re the kind of guy that likes to avoid emotional problems, and surprisingly, it hasn’t caused any major problems in our relationship yet, but I have a feeling it’s going to cause problems _now_ , and I’m fairly sure that it’s going to start when you actively try to avoid your… transformation,” Tony says, carefully. He frowns and looks at Natasha. “I’m not a massive expert in this, because my last committed, romantic relationship was like more than twenty years ago and the less said about my intense, fucked-up entanglement with Tiberius Stone the better, but that’s a thing, right? Like I got it right?”

Natasha nods, solemnly.

“Okay, yeah, I stand by what I just said. I think you should take a step back. We’ll end this as soon as possible, and then, I suppose, we’ll, uh, head back to the tower,” Tony offers.

“Tony,” Steve says, thin and taut.

Tony leans forward, slanting his mouth over Steve’s. It’s different to the way that he kissed him before the battle begun – his lips are thinner, his skin softer, and Tony can feel his jawbone and cheekbone against his beard.

“Just stay here,” he insists and flies off.

“Tony!” Steve shouts and then, starts coughing.

The sudden longing to go back to him rears its ugly head, but Tony presses on. Between the five of them, they manage to destroy all of the evil bunnies, and Thor has Loki in shackles, ready to transport him, sullen and sour, back to Asgard to await trial, _again_.

“Have you ever thought about the fact that clearly it’s not enough, whatever it is you’re doing to him over there?” Tony asks, casually.

“My mother had previously threatened to remove the use of his tongue should this happen again. It appears she will have to come through on her promise,” Thor tells him, sadly.

Tony pauses. “Just to clarify, when you say that your mother threatened to remove the use of his tongue, she meant just making sure he couldn’t speak, right? Not actually cutting out his tongue or anything? Because while I’m all on board for extensive punishment, I also don’t support human rights abuses.”

“No, no, no,” Thor reassures. “She would only remove his ability to speak.”

“Great.” Tony runs his tongue over the seam of his lips. “So, while he still has his ability to speak, would you mind…?” he trails off, pointedly, gesturing in the direction of where Loki was being kept.

“By all means,” Thor concedes, immediately.

Tony salutes him and heads in that direction, closing the door behind him once he finds himself in the room, alone with Loki, who is sitting, his hands chained together with a pair of cuffs that seemed to glow every time the light hits them.

“So, I’m just going to come out here and ask you, because I don’t like you and I don’t feel like giving you my A-game of manipulation: what did you do to Steve?”

Loki chuckles, and Tony has the sudden urge to repeatedly bury his fist in his face – but he also knows that would resoundingly upset Thor and make him mope around the tower and not even pop tarts would be able to pull him out of his funk.

“Why, Stark, do you not like him this way?”

“Whether or not I like him is irrelevant. What did you do to him, and how soon can you turn him back?”

“Alas,” Loki offers him a mock-innocent smile, tilting up his palms in a show of surrender, “I do not believe it possible.”

A knot tightens in his belly. “Excuse me?”

“I am afraid that your lover may need to come to terms with his… metamorphosis, because there is not anything that can be done to change him back to what he was earlier this day,” Loki says, slyly.

Tony’s standing in front of him before he even knows what’s happening, his fist in the front of Loki’s armour.

“The fuck is wrong with you?” he demands. “Are you so fucking insecure that you would screw over everyone else around you just to make you feel better, just for a second?”

“You would know,” Loki drawls and then, chokes, when Tony slams him back against the wall, his palm open against Loki’s throat and pressing down hard.

“You fucking prick, you fucking fuck–”

Thor is pulling him away. “Man of Iron–”

Tony struggles against Thor’s wall of muscle. “He fucking assaulted my boyfriend,” he snaps. “He’s lucky I’m not rearranging his fucking face, and he has the fucking nerve to tell me that there’s no way to fucking _fix_ it? Who do you think you _are_?”

“I am Loki–”

“Oh, my God, shut the fuck up!” Tony lunges for him again.

“Tony, Tony,” Thor soothes, “injuring my brother will not help you now.”

“But it _will_ make me feel better.” Tony bares his teeth.

“You should be with the Captain now,” Thor says, solemnly. “He will need you more than ever.”

Tony purses his lips thin, flinging himself out of Thor’s grip, before he sends a heavy look his way. “Tell me the truth, Thor. Is there a way to put Steve back to what he was this morning?” he demands.

Thor takes a deep, steadying breath. “I fear matters of _seidr_ are not my speciality, but I will speak to my mother. If anyone knows how to fix what Loki has done, it is Queen Frigga.” He squeezes Tony’s shoulder. “Be at peace, friend. I will go and investigate on your behalf.”

Tony stares at him. “He’s not going to like this, Thor,” he warns.

* * *

Tony was absolutely right.

Steve does not like this.

He’s waiting on their floor, pacing around the living room, in a pair of sweatpants that ride low on his thin, slim hips and a t-shirt that can only be Tony’s, considering that anything that fit his prior physique would have probably left him swimming inside it.

The elevator doors open, and Tony steps out, and at first, Steve doesn’t hear him, not until his boots come clacking closer to him. Finally, Steve turns, and the cagey expression fades, before replaced with one more irritated.

“Where the hell have you been?” Steve demands, and then, turns his face into the crook of his elbow to cough twice, his entire chest wracking with the sensation.

“I was with Loki,” Tony says and resists the urge to shift on his feet in discomfort.

“And?” Steve persists.

Tony goes silent.

The problem is that he’s also not just _any_ love interest in this story. He’s not just Steve’s well-meaning lover, boyfriend, partner, whatever they want to refer to themselves and what exists between them. He is all of those things, and he would die for Steve, just as he knows Steve would die for him, but he’s also Howard Stark’s son.

Initially, that had bothered him, especially when a game of Truth or Dare at Team Game Night had led to him and Steve making out in front of the team, plus Rhodey, Pepper and Coulson – he’d wondered if this was some latent daddy issue of his, wanting to be with Steve Rogers, whom his father loved so much more than he loved Tony, and he wondered if it were smart, stupid, messy, all of those things to get involved with the other man.

Today, though, today, it means acknowledging his profound childhood interest in the subject of Captain America, which involved listening avidly to all of the stories that Peggy and his father would tell him, reading up on him as much as he can, dissecting each of his files, which included the one which listed all of the ailments that Steve had before he’d gotten the serum.

_Asthma; household contact with tuberculosis; scarlet fever; rheumatic fever; chronic or frequent colds; sinusitis; palpitation or pounding in heart; heart trouble; high or low blood pressure; nervous trouble of any sort; parent/sibling with diabetes, cancer, stroke or heart disease; and easy fatigability._

Tony has a few of those himself, which is also why he’s a little hesitant to tell Steve exactly what the extent of the conversation was between him and Loki.

“Tony,” Steve says, sharp and taut, staring at him, “you’re keeping something from me. Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s not that simple,” Tony argues.

“Why? Because I look like this?” The look in Steve’s eyes turns caustic, and there’s a dash of furious colour in his face (Tony’s already worried; his heart is already hammering in his chest). “I didn’t realise you were so fucking shallow, but what should I have expected from playboy Tony Stark–”

“I don’t think you want to finish that sentence,” Tony cuts over him, with daggers in every word.

Steve falls silent and folds his arms over his chest. “You would never have done this, this morning. You would never have kept anything from me,” he retorts, a little pained. “You’re only doing this because I look like this now.”

“Clearly, you should talk to Rhodey, because I make decisions for other people all the time.”

“Tony,” Steve snaps.

“Fine.” Tony drags his hand over his face. “Look, I spoke to Loki. He’s an ass, but he basically said that there was… well, there was no changing what he’d done to you, that you’d be like this forever.”

Steve’s face cracks open in an instant, showing his vulnerability, the horror underneath.

The moment stretches taut, and Tony waits, waits for a reaction, waits for anger, for tears, something which he could deal with, because Tony always works better with something to deal with – he’s also a dramatic person himself, with terrible floods of emotion, and if Steve was like that too, it would be easy to deal with.

Unfortunately, Steve’s not like that too. He takes a short, choppy breath, and then, his expression settles.

“Oh,” he finally says.

Tony feels the need to compensate. “I talked to Thor, though. He said that he’s not an expert in the things that Loki can do, but his mother is and he said that he would consult with her, to see if there’s a way to reverse it,” he says, quickly, hurriedly, reassuringly, stretching out a hand.

Steve shrugs him off, and there’s a strain to his voice. “But as it stands, it looks like I’m stuck like this,” he says, bitterly.

Tony gnaws on his lower lip – there’s nothing that he can offer to that, no platitude, no correction.

“I love you,” he manages to say.

Steve’s smile is small and hard-fought. “Do you?” he says, soft with disbelief and almost mocking. “Do you really? Even like this?”

“Of course I do.”

Steve has hard eyes. “Don’t lie, Tony. Don’t lie to me, not about this.”

The tilt of his thin mouth is condemning.

“I’m not lying,” Tony says, his voice sliding high, hurt that Steve would even say that.

“Oh, please, look at you,” Steve says, derisively. “You’re really telling me that someone who looks like you would want to be with someone like me, the way that I am now? You really expect me to believe that.”

“Yeah, I expect you to believe that because I told you that I was in love with you and that I was in this, in _us_ , completely,” Tony replies, his face pinched with fury.

“Come on,” Steve cajoles in a what Tony perceives as a mean way, “come on, Tony, be real for a second here.”

“Okay, exactly how am I _not_ being real?” Tony demands.

“I know the kinds of people that you used to fuck before I came along,” Steve drawls, “and I know that I look _nothing_ like them.”

“That is not–”

“That’s not what? Not true?” Steve mocks, and he coughs again, wrapping an arm around his ribs, his fist pressed against his chest, before he lifts his head, his expression momentarily irritated with himself. “At least be honest with me.”

“I would if you’d let me talk,” Tony snaps. “Yeah, okay, I used to fuck a lot of people, which by the way you knew before we started dating so if you’re suddenly having a puritan dilemma that you lost it to a slut, well, I can’t help you there, but you also know _shit_ about my type, by the way. Just because TMZ only talked about the supermodels, doesn’t mean that’s the only kind of person that I had sex with. Hell, they had a whole no-homo phase where they wouldn’t talk about all the _men_ I was sleeping with either, even though I was totally public about it, so, would you deny the fact that I sleep with men because you can’t find it in a fucking tabloid?”

Steve grinds his teeth, and there’s a little strain to the gulp of air that he takes in.

Tony deflates. “Would you just, would you just _please_ sit down?” he sighs.

“I’m not a fucking invalid, Tony!”

“Just sit down!”

Steve perches on the edge of the couch. “I hope you know that I’m not sitting down because you told me to,” he says, stiffly.

“Yeah, pride, _that’s_ going to really help here,” Tony says, dryly.

The heat from the glare that Steve sends his way could strip bark off a tree.

“Look, I don’t know where you’re getting this idea from that I’m not attracted to you. Hell, I can’t believe that _this_ is the conversation that we’re having right now,” Tony insists. “Don’t you want to talk about this? About what Loki said?”

“Loki’s lying,” Steve says, stubbornly.

“And if he’s not?”

Steve purses his lips. “Then, Thor’s mother will come through,” he says, with immaculate confidence.

“And if she can’t?” Tony pushes.

Steve stands up in a hurry, and then, his legs give out from underneath him. Tony makes an aborted lunge towards him, but Steve glowers hard enough that Tony backs down and allows him to steady himself on the edge of the couch, his bony hand pale and tight against the armrest.

“I don’t care,” Steve tells him. “I _don’t_ care. I’m not staying like this. This isn’t permanent, Tony. It’s going to be fixed, and everything will be just as it was this morning.” He purses his lips. “Until then, maybe it’s better if we just…” he trails off, like he’s not brave enough

“If we just?” Tony prods.

“If we just… stopped with us for the time being, until Thor comes back with a solution.” Steve pinches the bridge of his nose. “Come on, Tony, just… just be honest with me. You wouldn’t want to be with me like this, and we both know it.”

“Exactly why wouldn’t I want to be with you?” Tony pushes out between his clenched teeth.

“You really want to make me say it?”

“Yeah, I kind of do!”

“I’m not the kind of guy that Tony Stark fucks,” Steve snarls and then, coughs again. “I’m short, I’m thin, you can see my fucking ribs, I couldn’t even have sex with you without having an asthma attack or getting palpitations, and _I can’t stop coughing_!”

He sweeps a hand over his face, and then, breaks into a coughing fit that makes Tony think he’s about to keel over.

“You have no idea,” Steve whispers. “You have no idea what it’s like to spend your life unwanted, the guy that others wouldn’t scrape off the end of your shoe. You have no idea what it’s like to go on a fucking double date and have your date’s face fall in disappointment when she finally sees you. You have no idea what it’s like to be the guy at the bar that _no one_ wants to dance with, the one that holds everyone’s purses and wallets so that better, more attractive people can partner off. They wanted my ma to give up on me, you know?”

Tony did know that.

“They wanted her to let me go. She and my da fought over it a lot. They didn’t want my parents to get attached to me, because they were so sure that I was going to die. After a while, my da started to believe them, because I got sicker and sicker. But I’d always get back up again, and Ma believed in me. Ma believed I was strong. I wonder if we fed each other like that, like it was a vicious circle. I’d get sick, and then, she’d pray, and then, I’d get up again, and it happened like this over and over again.” He looks away. “Maybe it would be better if I’d just died.”

Something clenches deep in his chest.

“Don’t say that,” Tony murmurs.

“Maybe it would have been better if I’d just died,” Steve says, stubbornly, glaring at him. “But I know what I look like. I’m a shrimp.” His voice is thin with disgust. “You could poke me, and I could break a bone. I’m short and thin and have no muscle anymore. I’m the last fucking person that Tony Stark would want to have sex with.”

Tony stares at him, his face feeling awfully dry and taut against the bones. “Do you really think that I’m that shallow?” he asks, quietly.

“No, no–”

“Because you pretty much just said that without saying it.” Tony stares at the wall, feeling a little weak. “You know this, but I guess that you’re forgetting about it because you’re fixating on what’s happening to you right now, but I’m not exactly some specimen of health over here, you know?” he says, bitterly. “In Afghanistan, when I was blown up and Yinsen had to, uh, to remove the shrapnel, Yinsen had to perform a sternotomy – that’s, uh, that’s when you crack open the chest.”

He rubs the back of his neck.

“He didn’t have anaesthetic or antiseptic, but he made do with what he had. I have an arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation, and ventricular tachycardia. My heart, in all these years, hasn’t returned to its normal rhythm. It’s probably similar to the palpitations that you get. I get tired very quickly, myself, and I can’t run up more than two flights of stairs. Hell, even that’s…” he trails off, “that’s hard sometimes too. At around one flight, I feel a tightness in my throat, and my legs and arms start to tingle. I’m fairly sure that’s my blood circulation cutting off, because my legs turn to stone, and it’s too hard to keep moving. I can’t survive without the arc reactor, but it gives me a lot of shit to deal with at the same time. Half my ribs and sternum are gone. The blood vessels in that area are all distorted, which means I get blood clots sometimes. Normally, when you get blood clots, you take blood thinners, but I can’t, because thinning my blood would actually make things more dangerous. And if those blood clots detach, they can become embolisms that can cause a stroke or be fatal. I have to monitor them very carefully.”

Steve looks ill, sicker than what he had looked like five minutes previously.

“I have lymphedema; that’s a chronic condition that causes swelling in my limbs because Yinsen had to move the parasternal nodes behind my sternum, so I had to design a surgical drain to completely replace the parasternal nodes with a port on both sides of the arc reactor housing so that I can drain the fluid as needed. A lot of my lungs were cut away, minimising my capacity to breathe. I lost about thirty percent of my lung capacity during both surgeries. I get bronchitis and pneumonia _a lot_ , and I have an inhaler on standby. There’s a lot of scar tissue, and I’m at constant risk of bacterial infections at the wound sites. The pain was… _is_ ,” Tony’s throat flexes, “well, you don’t want to know. Let’s just say that most prescription painkillers don’t work at all, except for fentanyl and only in small doses – that’s for end-of-life cancer patients – and I’ve just learned to live with it.”

“Tony,” Steve says, quietly.

“I can’t lie or sleep on my stomach because the arc reactor puts pressure on the front of my spine if I do,” Tony goes onto say. “Sometimes, if I get too wound up, too excited, I almost pass out. I have dealt with that for the last, what, five years now. That’s the life _I_ lead now, Steve. And I’m not saying this to compare experiences with you. I’m really not, but I _hate_ that you’ve got some idea that I judge people on their appearance, that I only like and am attracted to one kind of person. You have no idea,” he laughs, harsh and grating, “you just… you made an assumption, made an assumption about _me_ , like I don’t know what it’s like to have insecurities about my appearance.”


	2. ii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "damaged wing(s)" square of the STB Bingo - Round 1.

“Why would you?” Steve asks, confused. “Look at you.”

“Maybe that’s how _you_ feel about me, but not necessarily how the world does,” Tony says, coldly. “I’m Indian, which means that comes with a whole host of body image issues especially when the standard of beauty around the world are white people.”

Steve flushes.

“I’m Indian, and I have Indian features, features that not a lot of people are attracted to, and were not attracted to, when I was growing up. I’m hairy. They used to call me a dirty sasquatch. If you haven’t understood it yet, the reason why they called me a dirty sasquatch was because I had dark skin and I was hairy. I felt so much angst over my hair, which never settled on a good day, my eyes which weren’t blue, my dry skin, my hips, which were like a girl’s, according to my father and a bunch of other people at boarding school. When I was younger, I had an eating disorder,” he says, bluntly, watching as Steve flinches, “because rich people have to be beautiful people, and I didn’t feel beautiful, not the way that the others did. I didn’t feel wanted or loved or lusted after, because despite the fact that I was richer than most of my contemporaries, I was also brown with ethnic features and that wasn’t people’s preferences at the time. I had an eating disorder, and that’s something that I still struggle with, that I still get therapy for. As I got older, I stopped caring as much, but a lot of those insecurities still stayed with me. And then, I started spending time around the Avengers.”

Steve startles and straightens, peering up at him with eyes that are as clear as the day’s sky.

“You’re all either in the prime of your life, or you’re enhanced in some way. In any case, you’re all exceptionally beautiful, young, powerful, and I hate to be the one to say this, but you’re white. If you don’t think that I feel like the ugly cousin, well, I do.”

“Tony,” Steve says, softly.

“I spend two hours in the gym every day, and that’s only because that’s the most that I can do, with all of my problems. I can’t do extensive cardiac stuff, because I start to get chest pain, but strength training works to a point. I don’t exercise while any of you are around, that’s for sure.”

“I wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have judged you or anything–”

“I feel self-conscious,” Tony says, voice sharp around the edges. “It’s not you. It’s me. I feel self-conscious. I don’t need to have the differences between us pointed out in vivid display, okay. So, you know what, fuck you.”

Steve blinks at him in surprise.

“Fuck you,” Tony says, venom creeping into his voice. “Did you think I was pathetic, inadequate, a fucking waste of space this morning when you were the literal standard for human perfection, when I’m old and brown and hairy and pudgy around the belly and broken on the inside and the outside, physically and metaphysically?”

Steve looks horrified. “No, no, never, I never thought–”

“You don’t get to sit there and pass judgment on what I find attractive or not attractive,” Tony hisses. “You don’t get to do that. I am telling you now that I have no fucking problem with the way that you look right now. Whether or not you stay like this, I don’t care. Nothing is changing between us unless _you_ want it to and for a much better reason than you were just putting to me. If you were okay with being with me this morning, when you looked like a fucking god and I was nothing compared to you, then, I am fine with being with you _now_ , not because you are nothing compared to me, but because I love you, because I’m attracted to you, and I will totally have sex with you on that couch if it means proving to you just how much I am attracted to you.”

Tony even starts to take his shirt off, and Steve gets on his feet, padding over and tugging at his wrists.

“Tony,” Steve sighs, “Tony, don’t, it’s okay.” He leans up on his toes and presses his forehead against Tony’s. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. This is a really stressful time for you,” Tony says, immediately. “Just… don’t make any assumptions about what I’m attracted and not attracted to.”

“I won’t,” Steve says, gently, “as long as you promise that if you ever feel like you’re not something that I couldn’t want, you’ll tell me, so that I can explain to you exactly how much of a stupid genius you are.”

“That’s literally a contradiction–” Tony huffs.

“Tony,” Steve cuts him off, “I love you.”

Something melts on his inside. “I love you too,” he says, abashed.

“And I’m ridiculously attracted to you, by the way, old and hairy and pudgy around the belly,” Steve tells him, firmly. “I’m not going to say that you’re broken on the inside and the outside, because I don’t agree with that, and I’m not going to encourage that line of thinking.”

Tony laughs. “I love you,” he says, full of fondness, “and if you think even for a second that I’d walk away from you, because you look like this, well, you’re a total moron.”

“Tony,” Steve says, clearly unconvinced.

“Hey, hey, just wait, wait a second,” Tony says, swallowing hard, as he tries to stop Steve from pulling away. “I don’t think I went about this as well as I could have. I love you, I love you more than anything, and I am as attracted to you like this, as I was this morning.”

Steve shakes his head.

“I think I know why you don’t want to believe me,” he murmurs, “and I want you to know that any girl, any boy, _anyone_ who didn’t think you were worth being with back in 1940 was a fucking moron.”

Steve snorts. “They really wouldn’t agree with that,” he mutters under his breath.

“They were stupid,” Tony insists. “I think you’re handsome, sexy, attractive, all of those things. If I need to spell it out for you, I would fuck you on this couch, right here, right now, and no, that was not a challenge for myself – it’s a sincere wish.”

Steve smirks, despite himself, hiding his face behind a hand.

“Steve, nothing about you has really changed.”

Steve drags a hand up and down his body, almost grudgingly. “This would beg to differ.”

“That’s just flesh,” Tony tells him, fervently.

He reaches down, threading their fingers together and raising them to press against his arc reactor (Steve, Pepper and Rhodey are the only ones who have tried and succeeded, because he knew, in his bones, that they would never hurt him the way that Stane hurt him).

“Just like this is flesh. You are still _you_ ,” Tony goes onto say. “The things that I love about you: your strength, your goodness, your kindness, your determination, your stubbornness, your honesty, your protectiveness, your un-ending ability to piss me off, the fact that you continuously call me out on my shit, and when we fight, when we fight together, it’s like music, beautiful music. All of those things, they are all still _here_ , inside you. That is why I fell in love with you, Rogers, because of _those things_ , not because of your looks. I’m not going to deny that the abs are a perk, because they were, but you have perks now in the looks department too.”

“Oh, yeah?” Steve challenges.

Tony shrugs. “No offence, but they did measurements on you during Project Rebirth. I know exactly what the size of your cock was back then, and I guess, _is_ now. I would consider that a perk.”

There’s a dash of furious colour across Steve’s face, bright red against milk-pale skin. “Tony,” he complains.

“What, it’s true,” Tony says, defensively.

“That’s not,” Steve sighs, “that’s not a perk.”

“I would say it is.”

“I mean,” Steve purses his lips, “I mean, that’s just… that’s just something physical.”

“I could wax poetic about your horse cock the same way that I would wax poetic about your abs?” Tony offers. “If you’re concerned that I’m only interested in you for sex, though, I feel like I’ve pointed out all of the non-physical qualities that you have that make me interested in you, but I could keep going if you want me to?”

Another laugh escapes Steve, and he covers his face with his hands. “You are too much.”

“But you love me,” Tony says, softly.

“I do, I do love you,” Steve says, with effusive fondness. And his voice is almost awed, when he goes onto say, “and you love me.”

“I do, I do.” Tony presses his forehead against Steve’s. “We’ll fix this, Steve. Someone will come through, and if we don’t, if we can’t,” he feels Steve shudder against him, “well, I’ll love you, I’ll always love you, and nothing will change.”

He phrases it like a promise, and he hopes it settles in Steve as easy as it does in himself.

It’s never too hard for him to love Steve Rogers, though.

* * *

That night, Steve comes to bed, and Tony is already lying under the covers, pulled up to his waist, while he swipes across the tablet in his lap with the pad of a single thumb.

Steve hesitates in the open door, and Tony looks up.

“You coming to bed or what?” he asks. “Cause you were the one who was very clear about me needing better sleeping habits.”

“I was, wasn’t I?”

“Come to bed,” Tony cajoles.

Steve clears his throat and pads forward, his knees bumping against the edge of the bed. He’s wearing new pyjamas, Tony observes, a thin short-sleeved shirt and lounge pants – clearly Natasha’s doing, if Tony knows anything.

Steve climbs into the bed, shuffling under the covers, and Tony’s not going to lie, it’s a bit strange, getting used to Steve’s shift in appearance, his smaller body, knobby knees, thinner arms, but they make do. Tony shuts off the tablet, placing it on the bedside table, before he turns onto his side, splaying his hand, warm palm, over Steve’s bony cheek.

“Hey,” Tony says, softly.

“Hi,” Steve replies, with a small, earnest spread of his lips upwards.

Tony leans with a pleased sound rubbing up against the back of his throat and kisses him, his hand smoothing down from Steve’s cheek to his shoulder and then, the length of his arm until their fingers can tangle together.

They make-out slow and steady for a few moments, and Tony can feel the beginnings of heat curling low in his belly, a solid clench that feels comforting and uneasy like it always us.

And then, Steve pulls away, shaking his head.

“Sorry, did I hurt you?” Tony blurts out, the air feeling stagnant in his lungs.

Steve narrows his eyes. “Seriously?” he says, flatly.

“I just… I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want or like or anything that’s going to hurt–”

“I’m not breakable, Tony!”

“I never said you were!”

“Then, what was all that crap of _did I hurt you_?”

“I genuinely thought I hurt you.”

“Why was _that_ the first thing that came to your mind?” Steve demands.

“I don’t know! Maybe because–”

Tony cuts himself off before he goes on, because he knows that Steve won’t take it the right way, will see things in it that aren’t there.

“Because what, Tony?” Steve pushes. “Because what? Because I’m breakable? Because I’m sickly? Because if you touch me a little too hard, I might break.”

“Because I know what… I’m just trying to be considerate, okay?” Tony says, defensively. “Look, I’ve seen the files, I know… I know what you have, and sexy times _aren’t_ sexy if one of the participants is in pain or discomfort or any of those things, and that applies to both of us, okay? If the positions were switched, or if we just time travelled to last night when we fucked, wouldn’t you have been mindful if I said the reactor was giving me problems, or I couldn’t breathe, or my chest was hurting?”

“Of course.”

“So, why do you expect me to do less for you?”

“Because I never said there was a problem,” Steve retorts, hotly. “Because you _assumed_ there was one and stopped. I am _not_ breakable, Tony. Just because I look like this, just because I’m sick as fuck now, does not mean that I am breakable. Do _not_ fucking patronise me by treating me like I’m breakable.”

“That’s not what I’m doing!” Tony insists. “I’m not treating you like you’re breakable. I just thought, I mean, it’s been so long since you had to worry about these things, and I didn’t want you to exert yourself when you might have forgotten how to–”

“What? How to kiss? How to have sex with my partner?” Steve demands. “Guess what, Tony? I didn’t really have a lot of fucking experience with either of those things the last time I was like this, but in any case, it’s not something that I would easily forget or ignore. You made assumptions, just like you said I did this morning. You made assumptions and they were the wrong ones.”

To emphasise his point, Steve turns back the covers on his side of the bed and rolls out, storming off towards the door. Tony sighs and climbs out as well, going after him.

“Steve, Steve!” he calls out. “Steve, don’t be like this. Look, I’m sorry. You’re right. I did make assumptions, and they were the wrong assumptions. You’re right. Just… just don’t go, don’t…” he trails off.

Steve is in the lounge room of the penthouse, and the lights are on, cutting across his handsome face in shards, when he rounds on Tony.

“Go back to bed,” he orders.

“No,” Tony says, stubbornly. “No, not unless you come with me.”

“Tony,” Steve sighs. “Look, I accept your apology. I shouldn’t have gotten so pissed off with you. I just… will you go back to bed, please? I really need to be alone right now.”

“If we were in normal times, I would absolutely leave you alone,” Tony begins, and he can see Steve already puffing up in anger, readying himself for Round 2, “but I feel like if I do, you’re just going to stew in more of this shit.”

“ _You’re_ the one who made it sound like I didn’t know my own fucking body!”

“You’re right, you’re absolutely right.” Tony takes a step forward. “I shouldn’t have said that. I wouldn’t have liked it if you’d said to me that I didn’t know what I was talking about with my own body either, so it was doubly stupid and unfair for me to do the same thing to you. You didn’t deserve that. Of course you know your own limits. Just… just stay with me, okay? Don’t go anywhere.”

“Tony,” Steve says, frustration bleeding through his voice. “Tony, I’m not going anywhere.” His voice softens. “I could never leave you, Tony. Where would I go? You’re my home.”

Tony feels the emotion flood into his throat, knot there painfully.

Steve cups his jaw in his hand, smoothing a thumb over Tony’s cheekbone.

“Go back to bed,” he cajoles. “I’ll come and join you soon.”

Tony gnaws on his lower lip. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, softly.

* * *

Twenty-four minutes later, Steve comes storming back into the bedroom.

Tony is still awake, peering at his tablet, and he looks up, blinking in surprise at the shadow of Steve lingering in the doorway.

“Take off your clothes,” Steve orders.

Tony pauses. “Excuse me?” he says, carefully.

“Take off your clothes,” Steve repeats.

Tony puts aside the tablet. “Steve,” he begins.

“I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that I don’t need to prove anything, that there’s nothing wrong with me the way that I am now, that we’re good, we’re in love, we’re still in lust with each other, and everything’s going to be fine. I get it. I understand. I love you, but right now, please take your clothes off.”

Tony stares at him.

Steve deflates after a moment. “Only if you want to, of course,” he says, faultlessly polite.

And then, Tony slides out from underneath the covers and starts stripping; first, his shirt, and then, he rolls down the waistband of his sweatpants along with his underwear, until he’s kicking both articles of clothing under the bed, and straightening, showing his nakedness without hesitation to Steve.

Steve drags his pale eyes down the length of Tony’s body, pausing on his dark nipples, the curve of his clavicle, the thatch of dark hair at the base of his groin, his half-hard cock, and his feet.

“Get on the bed,” Steve says, his voice soft, dark, like honey, and Tony’s cock firms up all the way, curving towards his belly.

Tony chews on his lip. “How would you like me?” he asks, a little seductively.

“On your back.” Steve pauses. “Please.”

Tony sits back down on the bed, lifting his legs onto the mattress as well, and then, stretches out across the sheets like a cat.

“Touch yourself,” Steve orders and comes closer to the bed, standing at the edge, as he starts to shuck all of his clothes as well.

Tony takes a deep, steadying breath and closes a hand around his cock, stroking upwards from base to tip. It’s a little dry, but Tony likes the friction.

“Spread your legs.”

Tony plants his feet on the mattress and spreads them, so that Steve can see his balls and a hint of his rim as well.

“Good boy,” Steve drawls. “Now, get the lube out of the table there. I want you to slick up your fingers, get them inside you. I want to see that pretty little hole of yours stretched, so, when I fuck you, it’s going to be an easy slide.”

“Steve,” Tony says, surprised.

Steve looks unsure for a moment. “Was that okay? I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want.”

Tony’s heart swells fit to bursting with love for this man, the man that Tony loves so obviously and so certainly and so fervently.

“It’s good. I’m good,” Tony soothes.

He leans over, scrambling to get the drawer to the bedside table open, fishing inside for the little tube of lubricant, which he pulls out. He opens the cap, squeezing out a little onto his fingers.

He starts with one, because one is the easiest, pressing it against his rim until he feels the muscle give away. He bears down against the stretch until he’s knuckle-deep and starts thrusting the finger inside himself, using plenty of lube to make the way slippery.

And then, he adds a second one and a third, and it’s an awkward angle, with his arm tucked underneath his thigh to reach his hole. His fingers press against his prostate, and he rubs at it, insistently, feeling the spark of pleasure begin to build up at the base of his spine.

“Fuck,” he hisses, shifting on the bed, trying to get a better angle, rocking back against his own fingers. “Fuck, Steve, please, _please–_ ”

“Stop,” Steve tells him, his voice firm.

Tony stops moving, and an ache begins to build up in his arm. He looks at Steve, breathing hard, sweat pooling at his breastbone, at the nape of his neck and on the insides of his thighs. He looks at Steve, the lean lines of him, the way that his ribs cling to his skin, and his thin arms and his huge cock hanging and hard between his legs.

Tony runs his tongue between the seam of his lips.

“How did you ever walk with that?” he demands.

Steve chuckles, and his fist closes around the base of his cock, which beads with pre-come.

“You don’t want to know,” he drawls. His eyes settle on Tony’s hole, tilting his head. “You look like something I should have paid for.”

Tony’s throat flexes, his arousal spiking.

“You like that?” Steve says, amazed, and he reaches out, smoothing his hand up the inside of Tony’s thigh. “You like it when I say that I should have paid for you?”

“I mean, as long as you understand that sex workers deserve respect and are not, by any means, considered lesser because of what they do for a living, and that there’s nothing actually wrong with sex work, as long as everything is safe, sane and consensual.”

Steve leans down and presses his mouth to Tony’s knee. “I absolutely understand all of those things,” he murmurs. He clears his throat. “I want you to call me sir.”

He squeezes his cock, pointedly.

Tony’s mouth is dry as sawdust. “Yes, sir,” he says, his voice rough.

Steve climbs onto the bed, sitting up on his knees, and then, he shuffles forward, leaning back between Tony’s thighs. He reaches out and curls his arms under Tony’s thighs, dragging him forward, so that he’s half-seated in Steve’s lap.

Tony lifts his head. “You’re okay with this, aren’t you?” he asks, wondering if he’s too heavy for him.

Steve sends him a flat look. “Tony, we’ve already talked about this, remember?”

Tony glowers at him. “Fine, fine, fine,” he mutters under his breath.

“Lube,” Steve says, stretching out a hand.

Tony pushes it into his hand and watches with nervous excitement as Steve coats his fingers liberally with the lube, before pressing them, thin and long, artist’s fingers, inside Tony, two right off the bat, and adding a third within mere seconds.

Tony gasps at the intrusion, twisting in the sheets, his hands tugging at nothing, and his mouth drops open when Steve’s mouth angles over the head of his cock, swiping his tongue over the head.

It takes everything in him to not thrust up into that moist heat.

Steve pulls off, and his hair is sticking to his forehead, matted with sweat. “You like that, don’t you?” he murmurs. “You like my fingers in you?”

“I do, I do,” Tony murmurs.

Steve pinches at his thigh. “You know what you’re supposed to call me,” he says, sternly.

“Sir,” Tony whines low in his throat, bearing down against Steve’s fingers, “sir, I like your fingers inside me.”

“Little slut,” Steve says, without heat, and then, licks at Tony’s cock again.

Tony refuses to point out the irony of Steve calling anyone _little_.

Steve leans back on his haunches and grabs at his cock. “I’m going to give you a choice,” he says, slowly. “You can suck on my cock, and I can come all over your pretty face, _or_ I’ll fuck you, come inside you or come all over that slutty hole of yours. Which sounds better?”

“Oh, my God, don’t make me choose,” Tony moans.

Steve’s lips spread out and upwards in a grin, showing his teeth. “You’re gonna let me choose, baby?” he croons.

Tony nods. “Yes, yes, you choose,” he pants, when Steve twists his fingers inside Tony, crooking them to rub against his prostate.

“Lovely,” Steve sighs. “You’re so good for me, Tony. You’re such a good boy.” He leans down and presses his mouth to Tony’s, sliding his tongue inside his mouth. “I think…” he says, thoughtfully, mulling each option over carefully. “I think I’m gonna fuck you.”

Tony’s throat flexes.

“Yeah,” Steve says, pretending to speak to himself rather than to Tony, directly. “Yeah, I think I’ll fuck you.”


	3. iii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the "Found Family" square of the STB Bingo Round 1.

Steve wraps his hand around his cock, fisting himself. His free hand comes to grasp Tony’s hip, fingers finding the groove in Tony’s pelvic bone, squeezing. He leans over him, and Tony shies away from biting down on Steve’s shoulder, the way he might have this morning, just in case he breaks a bone with his teeth.

But then, Steve pushes inside him, his hips snapping forward, and Tony cries out, all thoughts of the difference between this Steve and this morning’s Steve flying straight out of his head – frankly, both Steves fuck exactly the same, and if their characters are the same, if their lovemaking is the same, Tony doesn’t see a problem with either version.

Steve groans, his head hanging forward, and his hips stutter and falter, pausing, like he’s getting used to having his cock in a vice like Tony’s body. And then, he grits his teeth, thrusting forward – Tony feels Steve’s ribs shudder against his stomach, and he almost says something, reassures him, but the last time that Tony made an assumption about Steve’s ability or lack thereof to do something in his current state, well, it didn’t end well for them.

“Fuck, you’re tight,” he wheezes, his hand tightening around Tony’s hip.

Tony rolls his hips back against Steve’s.

“You want me to go faster?” Steve demands and sets a harsh, punishing rhythm.

“Yes, yes, fuck me, fuck me, sir,” Tony pants, curling his fingers in the sheets and pulling. “Don’t stop fucking me.”

“Of course you want it fucking faster,” Steve says, darkly. “Sluts like you don’t like slow, soft lovemaking, do you? You want it fast. You want to be ridden hard and put away wet. Don’t think I don’t know.”

Tony just moans, arching his back, exposing the long, lean line of his throat, as he feels himself rock back against the bed with each thrust of Steve’s hips.

“I do, I want to be put away wet,” Tony insists. “I want you to come all over me. I want you to make me all filthy and messy, sir.”

“Won’t take that much,” Steve grunts, “with you being so fucking desperate for my cock, your tight fucking cunt, all sloppy like this.”

Tony curves forward, and then, his arc reactor pinches against a muscle or a tendon inside him, and he winces, rubbing against the spot, until whatever it is, shifts, and he can no longer feel the sharp pressure there.

Steve stops moving inside him. “What?” he says, sounding breathless himself. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just the, uh, the arc reactor…” Tony licks his lips. “I moved in a way that I shouldn’t have.” He smiles, wryly. “The unfortunate side-effect of fucking an old man like he’s a rent boy in his twenties.”

“Hey,” Steve says, firmly, closing his hand around Tony’s jaw, purposefully. “We have a deal, remember? Don’t talk about yourself like that.”

Tony flashes him the edge of a smile. “Sorry. Force of habit.” He rocks his hips back. “Keep going,” he cajoles. “Keep fucking me.”

Steve’s cock had flagged inside him, and Tony knows the feeling, the feeling when the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. He can see the tautness in Steve’s expression, the knowledge of the reason why he’s going slightly soft inside him, and he has no interest to setting them back half an hour.

“Are you sure?” Steve asks, worriedly.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck me,” Tony insists. “Fuck me, Rogers. Don’t stop.”

Steve pulls out, and the squelching sound that his cock makes on its way out of Tony’s bed sends a rush of heat all over Tony. He lifts his head in time to see Steve glaring down at his groin, as he takes his cock in hand, stroking fervently. His hand moves up and down, pale, thin, angular against pale, thin, angular, over and over again, and Tony can see the strain in Steve’s features – he knows, because he’s seen it in the mirror, seen it a thousand times since he came back to Afghanistan, had tried frantically to get himself off only for his lungs to be caught in a vice halfway through his jerk-off session, and the resounding ache and breathlessness to take any and all arousal away.

“Steve,” Tony says, gently, sympathetically.

“It’s fine, Tony,” Steve says, coldly, eyes fixed on his cock in his hand, which is still stubbornly soft.

Tony’s hand comes to cover Steve’s. “Steve,” he says, his voice firmer this time. “Steve, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

“It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Steve, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s _not_ okay!” Steve shouts, and then, starts to cough, vigorously, painfully, his spine bowing under the weight of the strain.

“It really is,” Tony says, quietly.

“This, I should be able to do. This, I should be able to _be_ for you. If I can’t, what is the point of me?” Steve demands.

“This is not the point of you. This is not why we’re together,” Tony insists.

Steve laughs, harsh and grating. “Yeah, you say that now, but a week, two weeks, a month, a year later, when I can’t fuck you like the way you deserve to be fucked, and we’ll see who still believes this is not why we’re together,” he growls.

“Hey,” Tony says, a little hurt, “sex isn’t everything–”

“Says the man who’s been having it since he was fourteen. It’s easy to go without something when you’ve had a lifetime and everyone else’s lifetimes of fucking,” Steve retorts.

“Okay, let’s not go with the slut-shaming again,” Tony says, sternly.

Steve colours in embarrassment. “Sorry,” he says, quickly.

“Sex isn’t everything,” Tony says, carefully. “Love means more than sex, and I have that in spades for you, and I believe you have it in spades for me too.”

Steve huffs. “Of course I do. I just…” he swallows, “I just, this morning, I could have fucked you into the mattress, gone all night, and now, I can’t… I can’t even keep it up for a couple of minutes, and now, I’m just…” he looks down at his limp cock, hanging against his thigh, “I’m just _soft_ ,” he says, bitterly.

“I have the same problem,” Tony tells him, after a moment’s pause.

Steve’s eyes lift to catch his. Tony forces himself to not look away, to not shy away in shame, because Steve will only believe this is nothing to be embarrassed about if Tony himself is not embarrassed by it.

“In fact, I’m pretty sure that the same reason why you’re, uh, struggling with, well, you’re struggling right now is very similar to what I’ve been struggling with since I came back from Afghanistan,” Tony says, quietly.

Steve shifts closer to him. “Tony,” he says, unsure, but then, stops before saying anything else.

“It’s hard for me to stay hard,” Tony explains. “It might seem like it’s just the fact that I’m over forty, but no, it’s because, well, of all my health conditions post-Afghanistan. Blood circulation doesn’t work very well. I get really worked up when I need to get hard, and well, my lack of lung capacity and various heart conditions work against me there as well, which means even if I’m getting there, the pain’s kind of a turn-off, and I just go soft. I think, without assuming that our experiences are the same, that’s also what happened with you?” he offers. “And that’s okay, that’s just… well, it’s the same thing that’s happening to me, so I couldn’t judge you for it even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to.”

“So, is that what we are now?” Steve asks, miserably, running his hand over his face, the one not covered in lube. “A sexless couple?”

Tony shrugs. “There are worse things to be, and we’re in love. Besides, I think you need to stop thinking these things in binary terms.”

Steve lifts an eyebrow. “Oh?” he says, archly.

“Look, just because you can’t get it up, right now, doesn’t mean that you’ll never get it up ever again,” Tony says, carefully. “You’re stressed right now. You’re amped up; you’ve had a shitty day; you’re getting used to all of this again. Without pretending that I’m a sex therapist or something, I think it’s fairly normal for this kind of scenario. We can try again tomorrow, and failing that, there are pills that we can take. I just… don’t do them, and we might have to see a doctor about what works with your conditions and my conditions and all, but still, there are pills. In any case, sex isn’t just about genital penetration. We both have fingers and mouths and there are toys that we can use, and it will be just as good.”

“Will it?” Steve says, disbelievingly.

“Well, three days ago, I sucked your brains out of your dick, and you’re telling me that you have doubts that blowjobs and fingering and vibrators _won’t_ do the trick?” Tony retorts.

Steve flushes. “Yeah, you’re right.” He looks at Tony, running his knuckles over his cheek. “I’m sorry. I ruined tonight, didn’t I?”

“No, you didn’t, because you’re going through shit, and I’m not going to hold it against you, just like I know you wouldn’t, if the situation was reversed,” Tony says, shrugging.

Steve watches him with that tempered gaze of his, an uncomfortable, thoughtful intensity that makes the feeling lurch within Tony’s body.

“What did I do to deserve you?” he asks, after a moment.

Tony’s face dimples with pleasure. “Something great in a past life, I suppose,” he says, haughtily.

“Yeah, I think so too,” Steve murmurs, and he curls a hand around the nape of Tony’s neck, pulling him close so that he can press his lips to Tony’s brow. “Let me make it up to you.”

Tony blinks. “Huh.”

“On your back, baby,” Steve coaxes, prodding at Tony’s shoulder with the palm of his hand.

Tony goes down like he’s made of butter, landing on his back.

“Spread your legs for me.”

Tony spreads his legs.

Steve hums, watching him from beneath hooded eyes. “Good boy,” he drawls, dragging his thumb over his lower lip. “You’re always such a good boy for me, Tony.”

“It’s because I love you.”

Steve grins. “I know.”

And then, he slides three fingers inside Tony, still stretched, still dripping with lube, and Tony cries out, almost throwing himself off the bed.

“That’s it,” Steve says, softly, watching him, his gaze even, studious. “That’s it, you beautiful boy, sweet thing.”

“Steve,” Tony gasps, rocking back against Steve’s fingers.

“My boy, just mine,” Steve says, darkly, kissing the curve of Tony’s knee. “You _are_ mine, aren’t you, Tony? Just mine?”

“Yes, yes, I’m yours, only yours,” Tony says, eagerly, rolling his hips back against the thrust of Steve’s fingers inside him.

“You’d never give it up for anyone but me, would you?”

“Never, _never_.”

“This greedy fucking hole of yours is just mine, isn’t it? You’d never let anyone touch you the way that I touch you. No, of course, you wouldn’t. I just worry sometimes, because you’ve got such a pretty cunt, and you take care of me so good, always, and you look so fucking beautiful like this, you look like you’ve been fucked good and hard and put away wet, just like I wanted you to be. It’s not what I wanted,” Steve growls, “not the way I wanted to do this, but you’re right, watching you take my fingers like a fucking pro, watching you swallow me in and tighten up around me and fuck back like you want everything that I can give you, well, there’s nothing sweeter than that. There’s nothing sweeter than you.”

Tony’s a little embarrassed of the high, needy whine that escapes him, as he tears at the sheets.

“It’s because of you,” he finally manages to say. “It’s because of the way that you look at me, the way that you touch me, now and always. You look at me like you could eat me whole, like you could crawl into my chest and stay there forever. That’s why I’m so sweet for you, Steve.”

“I love you, Tony,” Steve swears.

“Give it to me, Steve, please,” Tony whispers.

With a firm hand on Tony’s thigh splaying him wide, he shifts his fingers, the next thrust dragging so relentlessly against Tony’s prostate that the knot tightening in his belly bursts apart in a melting of sensation, and Tony’s coming, coming with his cock not even hard, and he feels it everywhere, behind his eyes, his toes curling, in the pit of his throat and his belly and in the notches of his spine, and he’s suspended in air, light cutting through him at different points, before that too shatters, and he’s falling back against the bed, his chest burning and his arms and legs tingling.

“You okay?” he hears Steve’s voice come through, a little muffled.

Tony nods, dazed, something hazy creeping into the edges of his vision. “That was pretty fucking amazing,” he murmurs. “I didn’t even think I could come like that. Hell, I didn’t even think that I was hard.”

He looks down at finds evidence of a wet orgasm all over his belly, which Steve leans down and doesn’t hesitate to lick up until his stomach is spit-shiny and damp. Tony groans, and his cock twitches.

He sends Steve a little glower through the dip of his lashes.

“Don’t do that,” he warns. “Don’t make me want.”

Steve grins, even if there is some sadness to his features. “Don’t take this away from me,” he drawls.

Tony sits up, and his chest is still burning, his throat still tight. He presses a fist to his breastbone, over the arc reactor.

“You okay?” Steve asks, worriedly.

Tony smiles at him. “Just need to catch my breath,” he tells him, as the pain in his throat starts to relax. “I’m old, remember?”

“No, you’re not,” Steve says, lowly.

“Fine, I’m sickly.”

Steve lifts an eyebrow. “I’m sorry. Have you met me?” he asks, dryly.

Tony sits up, shifting his legs underneath himself, ignoring the strain in his thighs. He curls his hand around the nape of his neck, pulling Steve forward so that he can kiss him slow, deep, messy, their tongues tangling.

“Let me take care of you,” Tony says, seductively.

He puts a hand on Steve’s cock, feels it firm up between his fingers, now that Steve was calm, was breathing at a steady pace, but he only gets to about half-hardness, still flagging every other moment – no matter, Tony’s been with enough people with penises to know exactly how to do this, and had struggled with his own erectile dysfunction in previous years to know exactly how to make someone come even with a soft cock.

“Tony, I don’t think this is going to work,” Steve says, uncertainly, his pupils blown wide, as he looks down at Tony’s hand on his cock, dark against pale skin.

“Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not,” Steve flushes, “I’m not… _hard_.”

“You don’t have to be,” Tony tells him. “Contrary to popular belief, an erection is not needed to have an orgasm. Just… do you trust me?”

Steve’s eyes meet his. “Of course I do,” he says, without hesitation.

“Then, trust me to know what I’m doing,” Tony says, gently.

He starts stroking Steve’s cock, even if the flesh is limp between his fingers. It’s an odd sensation for both of them, Tony admits, and he makes sure to use his left hand to rub over the head of Steve’s cock with the heel of his palm.

“Holy shit,” Steve gapes at himself, “it feels good.”

“Yeah, I know,” Tony says.

He reaches forward, closing his mouth around the tendon in Steve’s throat, connecting his neck and his shoulder, setting his teeth there. Steve’s head falls onto his shoulder, and Tony can see the strands of Steve’s hair sticking to his neck, damp with sweat.

“It feels really good,” Steve pants, shifting closer to Tony. “I don’t… it’s not like when I… not like before, not like when I could come before,” he says and swallows like there’s a lump in his throat.

“Make sure you keep breathing,” Tony warns him. “I don’t want you to keel over in the middle of the this.”

Steve huffs out a laugh. “I won’t, I promise.”

He starts moaning, his muscles straining, tendons taut against the skin, especially as Tony quickens the motions of his right hand, still rubbing the head with his left, and then, Steve comes – it’s not wet like Tony’s orgasm, there’s no actual come dribbling out of Steve’s cock, it’s not as intense and blinding, but judging by the slack look to Steve’s features, when he lifts his head, the dazed expression on his face and his eyes tells me that it was satisfaction, nonetheless.

“That was… that was…” Steve struggles to get out a word to adequately describe exactly what he’s feeling.

“I know,” Tony says, fondly, kissing him on the cheek. “But it was nice, right? Good?”

“The best.” Steve kisses him back, kisses him firmly on the mouth. “Thank you, Tony, thank you.”

“Anytime, and you never have to thank me,” Tony replies, feeling a little giddy himself at the thought of putting this look on Steve’s face.

“How did you, how did you even know to do this?” Steve asks, his eyes widened with obscene awe.

Tony clears his throat. “I have troubles myself,” he explains, “with the whole erection thing, especially after Afghanistan – plus, you know, I had a very toxic relationship with alcohol and drugs back in the day. And at the risk of spoiling the post-coital mood with a conversation about my hedonist past, I’ve been with enough people to know that it’s not as uncommon as an issue that people might think it is. There’s a, well, a lot of stigma for men who can’t get hard, and most people don’t talk about other ways of coming, or how to, well, how to deal with those issues without the use of a little blue pill, so, yeah, there are ways to come without being hard. And now you’re a proud recipient of those ways.”

“I shouldn’t have underestimated you,” Steve says, ruefully. “You always know how to take care of me.”

“That’s what we do for _each other_ ,” Tony insists. “You take care of me too, and I will always take care of you.”

“I love you,” Steve says, so fiercely that Tony feels it in his bones. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Tony replies, with a laugh in his voice, especially when Steve climbs all over him, their legs tangling together, and kisses him until the ache in his chest starts up all over again.

* * *

Three weeks later, Thor comes to them in their penthouse, away from prying eyes, and tells them, in a solemn, kind voice that a doctor might use when informing a patient of a terminal illness, that he has spoken to his mother, who confirms that Loki was telling the truth, that there is no way of returning Steve to his serumed form.

Steve takes it in with a stoic face, but when Thor leaves the penthouse, Tony waits for it, waits for the grief to come. It starts off slow, with Steve’s hands, poised on his thighs, clenching and unclenching around nothing. The tension then spills into his shoulder, as his body curves inward, as though protecting himself from the onslaught of emotions that he must be feeling.

“Steve,” Tony says, gently, placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m fine, _I’m fine_ ,” Steve insists, his voice sounding thick.

“You don’t have to be.”

His hand moves to the centre of Steve’s back, feeling the notches of his spine through the thin shirt that he’s wearing. He tilts his head, nudging his nose against Steve’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to be fine, if you don’t want to be,” Tony murmurs. “You don’t have to be anything you don’t want to be. I just… I love you, I hope you know how much I love you.”

Steve twists his head to look at him, and there’s colour in his face, and his face is pinched thin, like he’s in pain.

“I know,” he says, like it’s the only thing that’s grounding him in that moment. “I know you love me. I love you too.”

“This sucks. It’s allowed to suck. If you want to,” he clears his throat, a knot burning at the pit, “ _whatever_ you want to do, we’ll do. If you want to sit here, we can sit here. If you want to cry, you cry. If you want to go and throw shit, we will go and throw shit. If you want to go and set things on fire, I have a flamethrower down in the workshop–”

Steve huffs out a laugh.

“If you want to kill Loki, well, _let’s do that_.”

Steve starts laughing properly this time, the sounds wracking his body, and then, as if there was switch that finally turned on inside him. He heaves, his hands shaking atop his thighs.

“I don’t why this is hurting me so much,” Steve whispers. “I don’t think know why this is so hard. Why is this so hard?”

“I think it’s because you got used to living your life in a certain way, and imagining what your future was going to be like in that way,” Tony offers.

Steve looks at him, and his skin looks more taut than usual. “I was going to marry you.”

For a second, there’s dull, dead calm, and then, something, a feeling tries to claw its way out of him.

“Steve, we can still get married,” he says, carefully, sucking in an unsteady breath.

“I know, I know,” Steve says, almost annoyed at himself. “I just… I had ideas about how this would all go, and it… it’s not going to be like this anymore.”

“No, it isn’t, but it won’t be less,” Tony promises. His hand settles on the nape of his neck. “It doesn’t mean much from me right now, and it will be an adjustment for all of us, but it won’t be less. _Our life_ won’t be less, Steve.”

Steve stares at him for a moment, a bleak, hard look in his eyes, and then, he kisses him, full on the mouth, tender, his hand clutching at Tony’s shoulder. He pulls away and presses his cheek to the flat of the arc reactor, without hesitation, with immaculate confidence. Tony settles back against the sofa, wrapping his arms around Steve, his chin propped on the crown of his head – he tightens his arms when his shirt grows damp with tears.

* * *

Steve is still Captain America, albeit in a different way.

First, they go to a doctor. Most of Steve’s ailments can now be handled with medication. They get an inhaler for his asthma, all the vaccines that Steve didn’t have previously, blood pressure medication, beta blockers, anticoagulants, pre-diabetic medication. He has to have a couple of procedure, which the doctors recommend to correct issues that can now be fixed instead of taking medication for the rest of his life, like a catheter ablation and a bioprosthetic artificial heart valve that Tony and Bruce make for him.

Steve struggles with it, of course, with the sudden onset of a daily routine with medication and surgeries that require bedrest and recovery, and it doesn’t help that he can’t sequester himself in the gym and beat the shit out of a couple of punching bags, which leads him to therapy.

Slowly, though, he starts to come out of the depression that had ensued after they’d received confirmation that he would never go back his serumed self. He trains with Natasha, building up muscle and strength, and he goes out, to the VA, on runs, and he meets a nice ex-pararescue named Sam, whom Tony thinks could steal Steve away from him and he would probably be okay with it.

He even comes out in the field, in a remodelled outfit, still chucking the shield and beating up the bad guys, just without lifting tanks over his head or carrying girls on motorcycles – people don’t like it at first; in fact, there’s a whole petition demanding that Steve hand the shield over to someone else, that the government step in and end this ‘farce’ in case their enemies start laughing at their not-so-fearsome symbol of truth, justice and the American way; this sets Steve back a little, the surge of hatred that he experiences, until Tony reminds him that America was already ridiculous long before he came along, and frankly, he’s the only one giving the country any kind of class nowadays.

Steve is still Captain America, because at the end of the day, what he was as Captain America was nothing physical, had nothing to do with the serum or his muscles or his ability to forty miles per hour – it has everything to do with what’s on the inside, all the things that Tony loves about him, his kindness and his goodness and his sense of justice and honesty and his persistence and determination, especially where those he loves are concerned.

Steve is still all of those things, still embodies all of the best parts of being Captain America, so he’s still Captain America, and Tony will sue the shit out of anyone who says differently.

It’s not the same, though, and Tony or Steve won’t delude themselves into thinking it is; it’s change, a total, uncompromising shift to their lives, and it takes time, takes time to readjust all of those spaces so they fit again.

But they _do_ fit again, one day; one day, it _does_ work out.

It’s not the same, but it sure as hell isn’t less.


End file.
